#221 – Jorge Sanchez: The Immigrant Mindset that Built a Chicago Empire
Enter the Lionheart
Lawrence Dunning
4.9 • 67 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2026
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jorge Sanchez, founder of Fargo Construction, has spent more than two decades developing new construction multi-unit buildings across Chicago, helping reshape neighborhoods like Pilsen. His journey began as a young boy who left home in Mexico, eventually making his way to Chicago and starting in paving and construction. After the 2009 real estate crash forced him to reinvent his business, Jorge pivoted into development and turned adversity into opportunity. Today his paving company operates across multiple states while his construction business continues breaking ground on projects throughout Chicago — a testament to the resilience and vision behind the immigrant mindset.
0.00: Going through the Cycles in Real Estate as a Developer
5.00: Leaving home in Mexico at ten years old
10.00: Why the idea of "retirement" doesn't appeal to Jorge
15.00: The long-term play of being committed to an area
21.00: Why you need to give real estate time
34.00: The two sides of immigration and ICE protests
45.00: Why tax strategies in real estate are so important
52.00: The best way to get into New Construction Development
57.00: Expanding your business to massive paving projects around the country
1.04.00: Jorge's neighborhood to watch (Fuller Park)
1.10.00: Challenges to building based on labor shortages
1.12.00: Why the future is 3D Printing and robot's building
1.18.00: Why you must always move with the economy and the changing times
Check out the latest episode here:
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/enter-the-lionheart/id1554904704
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tD7VvMUvnOgChoNYShbcI
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A single theme is too now for great minds and daring hearts. |
| 0:15.0 | Get ready to enter the Lion Heart with your host, Lawrence Dine. |
| 0:20.0 | George, so great to see you. |
| 0:22.6 | And let's talk about when we first met. |
| 0:25.4 | You were representing yourself selling your new construction buildings on Arlington. |
| 0:31.2 | And we came to within about 50,000, two buildings. |
| 0:35.1 | And my client ran out of money, but he said, I'll throw in a nice vintage 9-11. And you said, okay. And I was like, I like that guy. That's my kind of guy. Yeah, well, thank you for having me. Yeah, that was a crazy time. Definitely something new with real estate every time, right? It's never boring. Every deal is just not the same. Every deal is different. Well, one of the things that I love about you, I'm so lucky. I feel like now it's easy for me to look at what I do, and I'm working with all these developers like you, selling their projects, but it wasn't a direct path there. And when I look back now, I was doing a lot of multi-units, but yours were the first new construction that I sold on Arlington. And now that's kind of my bread and butter. |
| 1:14.7 | So it's sort of... there. And when I look back now, I was doing a lot of multi-units, but yours were the first new |
| 1:11.5 | construction that I sold on Arlington. And now that's kind of my bread and butter. So it's so cool. |
| 1:15.4 | I'm so grateful for you because you've introduced me to so many people. But what I love about |
| 1:19.9 | working with people like you is so many people tell me, like, I want to build. And they don't |
| 1:25.2 | understand that it's not that easy and you have so many |
| 1:29.2 | challenges in Chicago and I've sold projects with people where they lose money. It's so to see you |
| 1:34.4 | doing what you do with your such good track record, it's really awesome to be a little part of it. |
| 1:38.8 | Yeah, it's been challenging. It's been years in the making, man. A lot of fights, but a lot of good |
| 1:44.0 | fights. I mean, it's been, it's been years in the making, man. A lot of fights, but a lot of good fights. I mean, |
| 1:44.7 | it's been challenging going through the cycles of real estate. You know, I started in 2003, and it's just been up and down, up and down, and then you get a little steady. And then when you think everything is cruising nice and neat and just, you know, you hit another bump. So I was in finance when 2008, 2009 happened, but you were building. What was that like? Did you, like, almost everybody that I talked to that's been in real estate for a long time will say that they lost money during those years. How was it for you? Oh, it was brutal. I mean, I lost everything I had in 2000, end of 2008, 2010, it was just brutal. |
| 2:18.1 | It was just a really tough time. |
| 2:19.8 | I was doing project in Lake and Hals. |
| 2:22.9 | It took me over a year to get plants and permits on that place. |
| 2:26.1 | And by the time I started doing construction, |
| 2:28.2 | and then it started in 2007 and 2008, |
... |
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